A large number – almost 66% - of today’s 4-year undergraduate students depend upon student loans to finance their educations. For some, loans are the only way a college education is feasible. Student loans are meant to be taken out and then paid back over a long period of time, usually thirty years. Unfortunately, for many of today’s students, paying back those students loans is becoming harder than ever.

Evidence suggests that today’s Bachelor’s degree is the equivalent of what a high school education meant thirty years ago. In other words, even students with Bachelor’s degrees are having a difficult time landing competitive jobs. This situation translates into the need for additional schooling, and as Master’s and various technical degrees are tacked to already sizable student loans, the prospect of ever paying them beck becomes bleaker and bleaker. The majority of today’s students take on an average of $20,000 in student loans – for some students this number is much, much higher – and the American economy isn’t helping to pay these loans back. A sluggish economy has meant that students entering adulthood with debt already a reality are hit with slow job markets, unsecure jobs, wages that aren’t increasing much and a lot of pressure to perform on the job.

Another way the unstable economy is impacting student loans is something called the “sub-prime mortgage credit crisis.” Essentially, federal and private loans have become less profitable, and this has lead to the decreased availability of private students loans to subprime borrowers, increases in the minimum balance requirements for loan consolidation, cuts in loan discounts (especially on consolidation loans) and increases in interest rates and fees on private student loans as lenders adjust their products to compensate for the rising cost of capital. The bottom line is, the unstable economy has created an increasingly difficult situation for students, some of whom have no option other than to take on more students loans to pursue additional education, and then to enter a workforce which is very difficult to get hired in.

Tags: Career Education, Financial Aid, Online Education